


Time Takes Time

by flickerthenflare



Category: Glee
Genre: Babysitting, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Married Couple, Minor Character Death, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 17:18:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flickerthenflare/pseuds/flickerthenflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine volunteering to babysit Tina and Sam’s kid all summer seems like a little much to Kurt, but it doesn’t change their lives too dramatically until a death in Blaine’s family prompts a discussion about their own plans for children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Takes Time

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Minor character death (Blaine’s father), acknowledgment of Finn’s death, swearing  
> Spoilers: None beyond 4x22  
> Author's Note: ileliberte did a fantastic beta job. Remaining imperfections are entirely my fault.

Kurt is a little surprised he isn’t greeted at the door the moment he puts his key into the lock. Blaine is terrible at being alone when upset and they both know it. Kurt snuck out of work as early as he could, well aware of how many hours Blaine would still have to spend on his own.

He finds his husband looking mostly put together as he rocks the baby in his arms, oblivious to the rest of the world. 

After kissing Blaine hello and noting the distracted but pleased look that’s become Blaine’s usual when they rejoin for the evening, Kurt surveys the apartment. The ‘baby explosion’ is mostly contained, just the playpen and a few toys out. And a rinsed out bottle soaking in the sink. And a baby blanket tossed over the arm of the chair. Still, mostly contained in a relative sense. It’s more organized than most days.

“Hey little guy, are you taking good care of Blaine for me?” Kurt’s not much of a baby-talker, preferring a more conversational approach if he’s going to say anything at all because he can’t shake the feeling that the baby’s secretly judging him for not speaking plainly. Which is probably why the baby looks so solemnly up at him before going back to waving his hands and bumping them against Blaine’s face.

“You’ve been great, haven’t you, Evan? Haven’t given me a moment to myself. Even screamed through your naptime. It’s like you knew exactly what I needed.”

Kurt laughs. Blaine does best with emotional turmoil when kept busy. A screaming infant probably forced Blaine to keep himself from falling apart while Kurt was away. “Have you packed?”

“Too bad I can't pack you and take you with me,” Blaine coos at the baby. Which isn’t really an answer but Kurt knows it means he hasn’t. 

“His parents wouldn't appreciate that,” Kurt notes wryly. 

He tells versions of this joke a lot – and it is meant to be a joke even if sometimes Blaine acts like the baby belongs to them and Kurt wants to give a reminder that he doesn’t – but its reception is even more lukewarm than usual. He won’t allow himself any more teasing, gentle or not: Blaine looks too raw, frazzled underneath the surface, as he angles away like Kurt would pluck the child from his arms. 

Kurt bends and presses a kiss to Blaine’s temple to soothe him. “Love you,” he murmurs into the curls before retreating. “Why don't you two come help me? I’ll get the suitcase.” Blaine obviously _isn’t_ ready to leave in the morning, they need to attempt sleep, and packing at the crack of dawn never works for anyone. They need to be fully aware and allow for the time needed to not make mistakes on their journey.

Blaine catches Kurt’s shoulder as he moves back and leans into the half-embrace he’s created. _Leave me alone, now come back and play nice._ Kurt really shouldn’t have expected anything different. Kurt’ll be more careful. He knows Blaine’s nerves are more exposed than usual.

“I want a real kiss,” Blaine murmurs into his shoulder.

Kurt twists to oblige. The first kiss is part of their ritual as much as locking the door and putting down their bags and Kurt finds it reassuring in its routine, but Blaine needs more reassurance than that. None of Blaine’s frustration comes through in their kiss. “I’m never going to get tired of this.” Kurt savors the words on his tongue. Or maybe it’s Blaine he’s savoring. 

Blaine shifts his grip on Evan.

“Do you want me to hold him? Give you a break?” Kurt likes to change before dealing with childcare, but the baby doesn’t look sticky or particularly prone to spitting up at the moment.

Blaine maintains his steady grip. “I’m going to be selfish and say no.”

Kurt kisses him again. “Keep me company. We need to pack,” he repeats.

Blaine trails as Kurt pulls a suitcase from storage above the closet. “My mom wants me to leave tonight.”

Emotional driving in the dark is a terrible idea: much better to wait until the morning and spend 12 hours feeling late than fall asleep or despair at the grim surroundings, in Kurt’s opinion, and Blaine would surely do one of the two under this much stress. The car rental closest to them closes at 7 PM: the decision has been out of their hands since before Kurt got home. Which is probably why Blaine hasn’t packed for himself. He always finds the most passive ways to say no. 

“ _Can’t always get what you want,_ ” Kurt sings. 

Blaine cracks a smile that twists into a grimace when he remembers he isn’t supposed to be amused by Kurt singing his emotions, even for a second, because he’s supposed to be grieving. He’s supposed to be a good son and rush to his mother’s side. 10 years of marriage make Blaine’s moments of self-loathing surprisingly easy for Kurt to predict, it’s the soothing that Kurt still hasn’t figured out. 

He goes for distraction instead. “Do you have an opinion on which suit I'm sending with you?”

Amusement switches to exasperation. “It has to be black, Kurt. I can’t show up ready for some imaginary runway.”

Kurt smiles at the thought of sending Blaine to a funeral in a baby blue tux, because he’s allowed to have a sense of humor about these things. “I can follow some fashion conventions, limiting though they might be,” he says lightly. Kurt picks out one of his own ties to send with Blaine so he won’t feel alone at the funeral. “Did you decide if I'm coming with you?”

“We should save your vacation days.”

It’s still not a real answer, which means Kurt knows what the answer is. He just needs Blaine to admit he wants the support.

Blaine reshuffles the baby in his arms. He carefully cradles its head and sings just loud enough for Kurt to pick up what he identifies halfway through as “I Won’t Mind.” It’s far more obscure than Blaine’s usual perky-side-of-Top-40 preferences. He wouldn’t expect Blaine to know a subdued song from a never finished musical on one of Kurt’s Audra McDonald CDs, but it’s a song to a child and Blaine is singing to a child so it’s more fitting than most of his music choices. Something about a woman who can’t bear a child delighting in caring for her godson and pretending to be his mother. Evan fusses but the noise doesn’t turn into serious cries.

Blaine glances repeatedly at the clock on the wall, anxious but trying not to show it. Kurt guesses at the reason. “Tina will understand if you don’t want to come out to say goodbye. I can take care of the baby transfer.”

“Sam’s coming today.”

“Then Sam will understand. Does he already know you can’t babysit for a few days?”

Blaine nods, eyes watery. 

Kurt holds back on reaching for him. They’re so close. A little bit longer holding on, and then Kurt won’t expect anything of Blaine other than letting Kurt take care of him. Blaine fusses with the baby and Kurt with clothes so he can resist the urge to rush over and soothe until Blaine can’t hold himself together anymore. Someone has to do the practical things until the inevitable breakdown that the baby is forcing Blaine to put off.

Kurt gingerly lifts Evan out of Blaine’s arms when the doorbell rings. Blaine teased once that Kurt holds babies like they have a strong will to self-destruct. Kurt countered he holds them like he’d want to be held if some giant had him the equivalent of 15 feet in the air. Really, it’s that he’s holding human life that someone chose to spend 9 months of their time on earth growing as a part of them and its family spent however long loving and caring for after that and putting hopes and dreams into, and he doesn’t believe in hell or any form of eternal damnation but that’s pretty much the only way he could see a you-break-it-you-buy-it policy getting paid off. Hell would imagine itself into being just for Kurt to go there in penance. He’s holding human life and it’s fragile. He has to be careful. 

“You look perfect like that,” Blaine chokes. 

_Silly sentimental man._ Kurt kisses the top of his head. “I’ll be right back.” _Please don’t fall apart. I’ll be right back._ He looks lost already, like he doesn’t know what to do with his arms now that there’s nothing to hold onto. 

Kurt thinks he and Evan have an understanding of each other. Evan doesn’t fuss much when in Kurt’s arms and spends most of the time watching the world with wide-eyed wonder. With Blaine he wiggles and gurgles like he’s singing. Maybe he’s picked up on Blaine’s skill to blend into his surroundings and mirrors them. It doesn’t help deter the resemblance with how Tina and Sam think it’s hilarious to dub him “mini-Blaine” and dress him up in bowties and cardigans and muss his straight hair to look like their best friend. Kurt suspects part of the appeal of having kids is using them to play dress up, because Kurt would get a lot of entertainment out of that. He sketched out ideas for Evan’s future Halloween costume – superhero, naturally, given Sam’s obsession and how whenever he explains taking Tina’s name he says because it makes him sound like an action hero from the future and he likes not being what people expect, where Chang must come from his wife but he doesn’t look like a Cohen either. Kurt also created drafts for Christmas and something special for Evan’s first birthday, and he didn’t realize how far into the future he planned until he thought of all the costumes.

On his way to the door Kurt searches around for any more missing items. Their apartment has a baby gate now, despite the little guy barely being able to crawl. And there’s a small collection of toys so Tina or Sam don’t have to lug them across the city. And the baby monitor. And a crib set up in the bedroom. Kurt didn’t mean to encourage the transformation of their apartment into a place for children instead of adults but he found the dingy antique during one of his thrift shop excursions and knew he could make it perfect again. He justified both the purchase and the labor to himself with the knowledge that he could sell the crib once it stopped being useful. Evan will grow out of it in a couple of years, and Blaine will have to stop babysitting once the school year picks back up and he refocuses on being a high school guidance counselor. 

“How’s Blaine?” Sam asks when Kurt’s still opening the door. He’s greeted by not one but two Cohen-Changs peering through the entry with sympathetic curiosity.

“We want to check on him,” Tina explains.

He’s not sure Blaine wants to be checked in on. Kurt doesn’t feel Blaine’s compulsion to niceness and doesn’t invite them inside. “We’re going to Ohio tomorrow. We’ll have to leave first thing in the morning.” Blaine chose to rent a car for a reason other than their shared preoccupation with fucking in the back seat: he’ll eventually ask for Kurt to accompany him but he doesn’t have to until he’s ready since the car can just as easily carry two as one. Kurt requested the day off immediately after Blaine’s call knowing what Blaine’s decision would be, but he’ll let Blaine make that request when he’s ready.

Tina nods. “We know. Blaine offered to take Evan with him.”

Kurt has a well-practiced eyebrow arch for moments like this where words aren’t enough or escape him completely. Blaine rented a car for the purpose of taking a _child_ with them? A very, very young child that doesn’t belong to him? He wants to take someone else’s child across several state lines, on a trip that means a full day in the car, to babysit while attending his father’s funeral? 

Sam holds up his hands at the familiar look from Kurt. “We didn’t take him up on it! I’m not crazy or so incapable of finding a sitter that I’d give up my kid for several days. Blaine’s already doing too much for us and I’m not letting Evan out of my sight that long.”

“Glad one of you sees reason.” 

He knows Blaine’s hard-earned ability to think critically disappears when he’s upset. All he does is feel and react and struggle. Kurt’s annoyed at him anyway. Flying would get them to Ohio so much quicker than driving: it’s like he’s intentionally prolonging his misery out of penance or he’s avoiding getting to the place where he has to acknowledge this is real. Blaine wants distraction so badly he’ll make an insane offer when giving up his summer to nanny for free was insane enough. 

“Don’t be so cross,” Tina says. “He’s had a rough day.”

Kurt aims his irritation on a new target. “You know how your relationship with Blaine has, upon occasion, had issues with appropriate boundaries?”

Tina’s eyes narrow in return. “Are you actually dredging up . . .?”

“Just keep that in mind so you feel a little empathy the day you tell him he can’t steal your baby.” 

“He sounded pretty messed up on the phone,” Sam admits sympathetically, diverting attention from Kurt’s short temper. “He in your room?”

The distance from the entryway to the bedroom isn’t large – they live in the land of overpriced real estate – and Kurt’s slowed down by the baby in his arms that makes his movements cautious, and Sam’s at the door, followed closely by Tina, before Kurt can even imply they might not be wanted.

Blaine is curled in on himself, tears streaming down his face, and Kurt feels like the most negligent husband for leaving Blaine for even a few minutes to get like this – he knows Blaine isn’t good at being alone and upset – and Sam is pulling him into the tight, unending hug Kurt didn’t offer for fear of provoking this stage.

The hug seems to startle the tears right out of him, intense for a moment with his eyes squeezed shut and then they’re gone. Blaine shifts guiltily in the embrace. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. It’s fine.”

Evan fusses in Kurt’s arms like he’s just now noticed Blaine’s distress, now that he’s out of Blaine’s arms and Blaine isn’t focused wholly on his care. Kurt shushes him in a way that he hopes is soothing.

Blaine’s friends don’t know what Blaine wants or needs, but they err on the side of affection. Tina rubs at Blaine’s back. “The latter isn’t true and you don’t have to say either. We’re you’re friends, you don’t have to be fine or sorry for us.” 

Blaine tucks his chin over Sam’s shoulder and lets Tina tighten the hug for a moment – Kurt suspects it’s to pacify their need to help but maybe he’s projecting his cynicism and iciness and touch-aversion on to Blaine – before insisting he’s fine a second time and trying to pull away.

“I thought boundaries between my friends were poorly enforced,” Kurt grumbles. He tries not to make decisions about what he thinks Blaine wants when Blaine’s around to make the decisions for himself, but he gives enough of a hint to make it easier for his far more polite better half. Kurt frets but leaves Blaine’s limits to him. 

Sam loosens his hold on Blaine. “Fine, fine. Kurt, you want to trade? We’ll see ourselves out.”

Kurt oh-so-carefully transfers Evan to Tina’s arms. Blaine wipes at his eyes. “Stop acting like your baby and I are interchangeable.”

“We love you both. And you both love attention. Come here, mini-Blaine,” Tina coos at Evan. Evan beams and waves his arms. The nickname, given out of affection for both the child and the man, is meant to be an honor, like parenthood is something they can share with him by giving the closest Blaine will get to a junior. Blaine went on for days about how sweet it was that they don’t mind calling their child by his name, even informally. Like they judged him and deemed him worthy. Kurt thought it didn’t help with the blurred lines between the baby being something he took care of on their behalf and being _his_. 

“I’m going to put a few more outfits in and then we’ll cuddle,” Kurt promises once they’re alone and Blaine looks like he still has his feelings mostly under control. He hands Blaine a box of tissues. They never grew out of wearing their emotions plainly for anyone to see: tissues are a necessity in their household that Blaine jokes they should buy in bulk. He should add a replacement pack of tissue or two to Blaine’s luggage. Maybe he can over pack enough of Blaine’s clothes that he can just suffer through the poor fit; it’s just Ohio. 

“Put yours in too, I know it’s driving you crazy not to.”

10 years of marriage. They know each other. Kurt flashes a smile in thanks for permission. He’ll feel better if he’s with Blaine. He shouldn’t feel like he has to be alone. With the expectation of company gone and the suitcase nearly ready, Kurt begins shucking off layer after stylish layer into clothes he’s less protective of. He knows how Blaine deals with overwhelming emotions, besides poorly: his clothes are coming off soon anyway. He folds their clothes alongside each other. He slides in the most somber suit he can stand in case Blaine wants him for the funeral too. 

The next time Kurt looks up he sees Blaine close to tears but holding them back. 

“Talk to me if it helps, honey.” 

Blaine struggles to compose himself, wringing his empty hands in his lap. His voice is barely audible. “I hate giving him back.”

Kurt silently waits for Blaine to continue. Let Blaine realize on his own he’s displacing his grief for his father on something easier to process. Blaine’ll figure it out; he had a degree in this. 

“We have everything we need for our own.”

 _Not true. Not true at all._ The toys will go home with the Cohen-Changs when Blaine stops babysitting so consistently (when summer is over), as will the spare baby clothes. They need adoption papers or an egg donor and a surrogate and both options require a fair amount of money and planning.

“You’ll be an amazing father.”

 _Also not true._ Kurt swallows. He doesn’t have the patience. His sharpness is hard enough for adults to deal with. He’s spared from responding by a choking noise from Blaine. Fathers are a rough subject today. They’ve reached the official breaking point. 

Kurt holds Blaine like he’s been meaning to since he got home – since even before then when he got the news and knew Blaine would need someone to hold onto. He shushes Blaine’s shaky apologies for his grief. “Sometimes the best that you can do, with all the options available, is collapse and cry and wait for time to pass.”

He holds steady as Blaine’s hands slide to push from close to closer. Blaine grips like he can anchor them together and keep them that way. Never close enough. Kurt lets out an oomph in surprise as he sways under Blaine’s weight and his back hits their mattress. Blaine can still take his breath away, alright. He listens to Blaine breathe, tucked into Kurt’s neck, shuddery at first and then deep.

The _I love yous_ spill out of Blaine in a chant when his mouth isn’t on Kurt and vibrating against Kurt’s skin. This part of grief Kurt knows how to handle. He can take Blaine’s focus from how his heart hurts. Blaine doesn’t do feelings halfway: everything’s intense with him. Kurt can make it hard for him to feel anything else. He steadies against Blaine’s shoulders. He doesn’t force stillness on Blaine, just distracts him into slowing. His hands flex. Blaine slowly becomes undone, stretching and wreathing as Kurt moves Blaine from hovering above to along his side. Kurt makes up for maintaining a distance earlier. Their noses brush and it makes Blaine smile, every time.

Blaine sighs in temporary relief.

The light coming through the window fades. Shadows stretch. Kurt watches Blaine’s chest rise and fall with each breath. He closes his eyes but Kurt knows he’s not asleep. One lone curl droops lower than the rest like he’s Clark Kent.

The stillness doesn’t last, taking the hope that they can call it an early night with it. The physical distracts for only so long and he’s left worn and weary and stubbornly still awake despite how much nicer their early morning will be if their bodies allow them to rest. Blaine grabs precautionary Kleenex and tears at it the longer he doesn’t put it to use until it resembles decorative fringe and threatens to fall apart. 

Kurt can’t stop thinking either. They should call Carole to warn her she’ll see them sooner than she thinks, and Cooper to see how he’s holding up while in transit, and Blaine’s mom to provide comfort while they’re still long distance.

Blaine flops heavily back against the mattress after depositing the fringed tissues in the trash. “Why am I not asleep yet?”

It’s not that late. Emotional exhaustion doesn’t lead to sleep as easily as the regular kind. “Want me to wear you out further?” Blaine sounds too distraught to just be whining about wanting to get laid again. 

“No,” Blaine sulks. His restlessness doesn’t stop. Blaine’s fidgeting jostles Kurt each time Kurt starts to approach sleep. Kurt tries to detangle himself and move to the far side of the bed. The heat pushes them apart and Blaine’s desire for contact pulls them back together. Kurt doesn’t mean to make Blaine chase him. He holds himself still as soon as he realizes. Blaine will do a lot for no reason other than Kurt asking him to, but he can’t fall asleep on command.

Finally, fed up with time ticking away and no sign of rest coming, Blaine pushes out of bed entirely. “Don’t wait up for me.” 

Kurt stretches in the space left to him. Guilt churns his stomach over the peaceful rest allowed to him by Blaine taking his turmoil elsewhere. He calls Mercedes so he can get his own feelings of uncertainty out of the way and focus on shouldering Blaine’s grief when he returns. 

They’ve come a long way since their teenage years: she’s unselfish in her comfort, offering her sympathies calmly so Kurt doesn’t have to soothe her or spiral further. She makes no mention of afterlife and neither does he. Their focus stays on the living. 

“Do you think grief gets easier as we age?” he asks.

Mercedes hums into the phone before she responds. “I think it’s more predictable, but that doesn’t make it easy. And I think I resent the implication that I’m getting older.”

“As we gain maturity and flawlessness, then.” He means it when he implies that she’s gained both. 

“You know all the coddling in the world isn’t going to fix this for him. Be patient when he starts driving you crazy. Remember that he copes differently than you, so find that line between taking care of logistics and color-coding his grief for him. Put up with his family. That’s all you can do.”

“You give the best pep talks.” They don’t talk as often as they used to, now that she’s back in LA, but their friendship always picks up where they left off.

“Tell Blaine I’m thinking about him.”

“I will.” He’ll say praying for when he passes along the message, even, because he knows what she means.

Once too hot, now he feels too cool without Blaine’s insulation against the air conditioning. He turns on his side. They have a system: Blaine clings and Kurt delights in being held. Without Blaine he’s anchorless. He sets an alarm to check on Blaine in an hour. If Blaine wants him sooner, he’ll come back.

The alarm doesn’t wake him. Kurt isn’t certain what does, but he groggily reaches over Blaine for his phone on the nightstand. 4:52.

“Why are we awake?” Blaine asks sleepily.

“Not planning on staying this way.” He doesn’t know which of them woke the other up. Or when Blaine came back to their bed. Or what happened to the alarm that was supposed to wake him up hours ago.

Blaine nestles back into Kurt – once again too hot – and Kurt lets himself drift.

***

Kurt’s not as rested as he’d like when the morning alarm goes off. He checks the time and confirms it’s the real alarm, not the failed one from the night before that he forgot about.

Blaine holds on lightly, his fingertips solid on Kurt’s waist but space left between the rest of them, a compromise they reached in the night without realizing. Blaine stirs when Kurt slips out of his fingertips. His hand flexes and grabs at empty space.

Kurt can see, after Blaine’s eyes blink open, when the events of the prior day catch up with him. Poor sleep-weary Blaine checks the crib for a baby that is never there at this time of day. He stumbles to the shower when he remembers.

“You can nap while I drive,” Kurt promises when Blaine comes out clean but exhausted and his hair slicked back with an intensity he hasn’t come close to in years. “Also, you smell like raspberries.” Kurt may not have a degree in psychology like Blaine, but he knows Ohio means regression and Blaine awash in self-doubt. Blaine controls what he can. He breathes in the scent familiar from a long time past and is hit with a wave of nostalgia. 

Blaine slides a hand over his hair. “I just want to chug coffee and go back to sleep.”

Kurt’s seen Blaine do it before – if tired enough, Blaine will sleep through anything, and that includes caffeine highs. Kurt downs his own coffee. They have a 12 hour stretch of driving ahead of them. They’ll buy coffee along the way so Kurt can avoid using a gas station restroom and they can both stretch, but he’ll need more than that to last the whole trip. 

Kurt ushers them through their routine and out the door while trying to mind Mercedes’ advice to not choose logistics over dealing with emotion. Blaine’s his regular effervescent self when he checks out the rental car in his role as the public face of the Anderson-Hummel brand that’s warm and puts others at ease. Someone who doesn’t know him won’t realize that the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He only falters when the increasingly-more-cheerful-with-prolonged-exposure-to-Blaine attendant asks what their plans for the long weekend are. Kurt predicted it’d come up and supplies “visiting family” while Blaine falters.

Blaine has his eyes closed and his seatbelt on in the passenger seat by the time Kurt’s next to him and ready to drive. The corner of Blaine’s mouth twitches into a smile even as Blaine keeps his eyes closed serenely. “The back seat looks nice.” 

“I’m well aware of your ulterior motives in choosing a rental car.” 

“I owe you a blowjob.”

Kurt scoffs. They don’t count turns. Ten years of marriage: how could anyone keep track of numbers when they got that high? No one’s sexually unsatisfied. Blaine doesn’t owe him a thing. It’s an easier problem to focus on, and a much easier fix than thinking about the impending funeral they can’t do anything for while in transit, even if the peace from the day before was only temporary. Given the choice between Blaine driving himself with the threat of vision-obscuring tears or letting Blaine distract them both into some mild discomfort because he doesn’t know what else to do with himself besides joke about blowjobs, Kurt will pick mild discomfort every time.

Blaine runs his fingers along the console. “If we move further east, we could get a car.”

“If we move any further away from Manhattan, teleportation is clearly a viable option.” His commute is long enough. 

“It seems like a good idea with kids.”

Kurt debates pretending Blaine’s comment about kids is a non sequitur. 

“You like Evan,” Blaine presses.

“He’s very cute. Especially since we get to give him back to his exhausted parents and sleep at night.” 

“He’s good practice for when we have our own.”

Kurt steels himself because, emotional already or not, Kurt can’t think of a way to steer Blaine away from the topic. “I don’t think we should talk about this right now.”

“We don’t want to run out of time. We’re not even on the way to having them, and it could take years, and every time we talk about it the only thing that gets said is I want kids and you say okay, like you understand, but that’s not the same as agreeing.”

“Now isn’t the time to decide on whether we want kids.”

The atmosphere in the car chills. Blaine’s jaw clenches and unclenches. “We already decided. We had plans. We talked about the future before we got married. You knew. You knew I wanted this.”

“Every decision for our lives wasn’t pre-set before we signed on the dotted line. We didn’t agree to a laundry list.” Kurt risks a glance to his side. Hot, angry tears stream down Blaine’s face. The future’s supposed to be the minor thing he lets Blaine fret about to do something other than mourn; a distraction and nothing more intense than whether they hypothetically want to move or deal with car ownership. It’s not supposed to spiral into an argument about where they see themselves for the next 20 years. They’re not supposed to have this conversation under these circumstances. He can’t relent now and tell Blaine later, once picks back up into normalcy, that a promise made to provide brief comfort shouldn’t be one Kurt’s liable for. Blaine resents him enough for waffling on cat ownership. If Blaine ever catches one of the stray cats on their street, Kurt knows he won’t be able to refuse, but thankfully children don’t work like that and all Blaine can do is borrow their friends’ all summer and play pretend. 

“There’s Kleenex in my bag. It’s behind my seat.”

A sullen sniff is the only response Kurt gets. The box is just far enough that Kurt can’t reach. He aches for Blaine. They’re sympathetic criers, both of them. One starts and the other chokes up but pushes on if they can. He forbade himself from crying when transporting Blaine, though. He came along to shuttle Blaine safely. 

They wind their way over bridges and out of the city in silence. Blaine gets the Kleenex for himself. Kurt wishes he’d just let Blaine sleep. Blaine spent the year before patiently listening to Kurt’s constant bemoaning of “ _I’m thiiiirty!_ ” Kurt thought Blaine handled the switch more gracefully, but perhaps his drama came belatedly, pushed along by new life, death, and summer boredom. Kurt drops his hand to the console for Blaine to take if he wants. Blaine turns further away.

“I’m tired of waiting. Waiting to get there. Waiting for you to make up your mind. Waiting to pick back up and act fine again. _Be_ fine again.”

“We can stop?” They’ll get to Ohio later than planned, but he doesn’t want Blaine to feel trapped with him. He doubts stopping will help. They need to get there. Blaine doesn’t do delayed gratification like Kurt. He flounders without an immediate solution that, in times like this, doesn’t exist. When he hurts, he feels like he’s going to hurt forever. He recalls what Mercedes said about how people mourn differently. Kurt doesn’t feel less, but he compartmentalizes and carries on like he’s fine, if icier than usual. Blaine’s feelings live on the surface and demand to be acknowledged at all times. 

Blaine also lives in denial – he has yet to mention the real reason for their trip or anything at all about his father.

“Now is the perfect time for us to examine what we want in life.” He primly over enunciates each word behind his tissue, which tells Kurt he's rehearsed this line in his head to get it right.

Kurt throws another look in Blaine’s direction. He doesn’t correct that he meant they could stop the car, although stopping the conversation before it spirals further out of control would also be ideal. “Everything ends. That includes how you’re feeling now.”

The overlap between what comforts Kurt and what comforts Blaine doesn’t include that statement. “That’s your way of letting me down? Really? I’ll get over it.”

“I meant…” _I meant your father’s death, not the far cuter life event you’re projecting onto._ “I don’t want to have this discussion when you’re emotional like this.”

“Don’t want to let me down further?” Blaine sulks.

“Having a child won’t make you stop feeling what you’re feeling right now.” He tries to speak patiently. He wants to follow Mercedes’ advice. He knows that in Blaine’s grieving he doesn’t want to hear that anything’s temporary, even his sadness. “Creating new life seems like a wonderful idea in the face of death, and it makes death make more sense to us.”

“We don’t have to create it. We could adopt.”

Kurt shakes his head. _Be patient._ “I don’t want to condescend. I don’t want to disregard every feeling for the next 72 hours of this trip because all you’re supposed to feel is sad. But we can’t make a decision under these circumstances. This isn’t a good time to talk about children.” 

“We could name him Finn.”

“Don’t you dare manipulate me like that!” He doesn’t use that tone for Blaine. He reserves it for people who hurt him intentionally. For people he stops respecting. Blaine’s not being cruel, or manipulative, or anything but his clueless giving self, trying to extend the conversation by offering what he assumes Kurt wants, and Kurt still feels like he’s been run through with a steel pipe that pushes everything inside of him out and leaves him hollow.

Blaine recoils with the same shock Kurt feels for snapping like that. “I thought it’d be nice.” His tone is defensive. 

“Adopted children come with names. I already had a Finn: I don’t need another.” It’s more civil-sounding this time, but there’s an edge. Blaine could’ve picked a member from his own family to suggest memorializing – _one in particular comes to mind_ – but that means acknowledging they’re on more than a summer road trip back to Ohio. Children aren’t meant to fill a void, ignoring how Sam named his son after his imaginary twin brother: back in high school Sam imagined Evan Evans into being so he’d never have to be alone again, and then had Evan Cohen-Chang as a reminder of the companionship he wanted in his youth. Loneliness can be fixed, but grief can’t be forced out. 

During the school year, Blaine deals with his students’ grief, and all their other troubles, and helping find outlets for all their feelings on a daily basis. Presumably Blaine doesn’t have many students who problem solve by having babies, but then again, given what a weird bunch they and their friends were in high school, Kurt doesn’t put it past them. Blaine would surely recommend against it, right? Kurt doesn’t need a degree to know it’s a bad idea. 

Blaine’s sulking is the self-contained kind. He pulls away from Kurt, leaving more space between them. 

“Give it time.”

“There’s not as much time as you think! We’re getting older. Summer is never as long as you think it’s going to be. We can’t keep borrowing Evan and forgetting to make our own plans. Summer is going to end and I won’t have a baby anymore. I never had one. He’s not _mine_. I’ll go back to helping high school students, who aren’t mine either. Tina and Sam could decide tomorrow that they’re through sharing, or they don’t trust me with him and then it’s over. What’s the point if they can just take him away?”

“They’re not going to kick you out of his life.” 

“If we do this soon enough they could be close enough in age to play together with Evan.”

“I wouldn’t plan a future around that, they’re not bound to us, they could move…” he would smack a hand over his stupid mouth if he didn’t value steady driving with both hands on the wheel more. Possession isn’t forever, not even if the kid occasionally goes by his name. That’s not how people work. Tina and Sam wouldn’t intentionally cut Blaine out of parenting their child, but unforeseen circumstances are just that. “Nothing comes guaranteed and just because you can imagine a future doesn’t mean you get it. Being ours doesn’t mean forever either.”

School will start again in a few weeks. He gives his days to guiding children and teenagers but all those relationships are temporary; his role in their lives isn’t meant to be anything but brief. Blaine has been doing this work just long enough to full fully comprehend how many lives he’ll touch and then lose track of. Of course Blaine wants something he can hold onto. 

Kurt glances over. Blaine turns even further sideways toward the window, hunched in on himself. Sitting and doing nothing in the car is the worst. Blaine doesn’t do well when he can’t do anything. The silence is getting to both of them.

Kurt turns on the radio. He flips until he finds the early 2000s station. With all the overly-specific stations on satellite radio, Kurt wishes for Blaine’s sake that someone thought to create a Fierce Female Powerhouses of the 1990s-2000s. Even so, he doesn’t have to wait long for a song that Blaine has referred to at some point in time or another as “the best song _ever_!” 

They have a sing-along understanding when it comes to the radio. With Rachel, Kurt would take turns doing full songs, otherwise it turns into a competition that stops traffic or makes their neighbors hate them, depending on the location of the sing-off. As a teenager he’d sing with Finn in unison, keeping the arrangement simple and neither upstaging the other, more about having camaraderie than putting on a show. Kurt’s dad used to sing in the car but now he just encourages Kurt. Kurt and Blaine make every song a duet, taking turns dropping out of lines or belting out a solo they know they’ll be given or harmonizing. He can guess which lines Blaine wants to himself and where he’ll want company.

Blaine doesn’t take any of the lines Kurt expects him to. He can’t resist entirely, though, and ends up sullenly bup bup bups along with the moving bass line like he’s back in an a cappella ensemble. His eyes stay fixed out the window.

Blaine’s spent years learning to name what he feels and not rely on music to do it for him: Blaine finds people baffling and enthralling and Kurt long-ago suspected Blaine went into psychology to get a framework for figuring people out, including himself. Kurt read once that when under stress people revert to who they once were, learned behaviors and coping mechanisms gone. 

Kurt’s not the expert on this. 

There’s too much space between them. Talking for hours or sitting in companionable silence, he wants Blaine near him. He never reaches his fill. There’s not a cap on affections, no law of diminishing returns. They’ve moved and fought and humored each other through quarter-life crises and edited each other’s resumes and supported adding to them in strange (Kurt) or unexpected (Blaine) ways and thought about giving the other up in the darkest moments and loving him is the constant. 

He can’t offer Blaine certainty, but he wracks his mind for something that seems like progress. “We’ll schedule a time once this is all over. You can put it on our calendars. We just both need to remember that talking about this isn’t a formality with a predetermined outcome.”

“No kangaroo court?” Blaine cracks despite himself. Heart on his sleeve as always, he can’t keep the emotion out of his voice. 

“I don’t want you to feel tricked if I’m not convinced by the end. But I’ll listen. And we’ll weigh our options. It’s going to take time, though.”

Time will tell whether they’ll have a child, whether Blaine will forgive him if they don’t, whether Kurt will fail to measure up to his own father if they do. Time sounds like a simple solution: no grand schemes, no plan of action, no 12 steps to happiness. But time isn’t free. Each minute feels like a waste: a missed opportunity, testing both their patience. 

Kurt drops his hand back to the console and waits for Blaine to take it. They’ve done grief together. They can get through this. Blaine rubs his thumb along Kurt’s knuckles for comfort. They keep holding on – through the winding highways leading to the Midwest, their stops for more coffee and a chance to stretch, Blaine finally drifting off to sleep and waking up again, and his questions on what he should even say at the memorial service – until they reach Ohio.


End file.
